1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a rolled-paper feed unit connected to an image forming apparatus such as an electrostatic photographic copying apparatus, a facsimile or the like.
2. Description of the Related Arts
An image forming apparatus (for example, an electrostatic photographic copying apparatus) is generally arranged such that cut paper sheets in a paper feed cassette mounted on the main body of the image forming apparatus are automatically fed one by one to an image forming unit. In another case, cut paper sheets are manually fed one by one to the image forming unit through a manual paper feed port.
Such an image forming apparatus requires a greater paper storing space as the size of cut paper used for image forming is greater. In this connection, provision is made such that rolled paper is set in a rolled-paper cutting device disposed independently from the image forming apparatus and that a cut paper sheet as previously cut to a desired size from the rolled paper is fed to the image forming unit. However, it is not only very troublesome but also very ineffective to cut the rolled paper into a paper sheet each time by using the device separated from the image forming apparatus.
Alternately, it may be proposed that the image forming apparatus incorporates the rolled-paper cutting device such that rolled paper is cut into a sheet having desired sizes and fed to the image forming unit when the paper feed mode is switched from a setting for feeding original cut paper (hereinafter referred to as a cut-paper feed mode) to a setting for feeding rolled paper (hereinafter referred to as a rolled-paper feed mode). In this case, it is required to newly design and manufacture a special image forming apparatus having a complicated arrangement, thereby to increase the cost. Further, the user already possessing an image forming apparatus provided with a cut paper feed function or a manual paper feed function, is required to further purchase an image forming apparatus incorporating a rolled-paper cutting device. Thus, the existing image forming apparatus comes to nothing.